Vehicle suspension dampers, or shock absorbers, are used to limit the oscillatory behavior of a vehicle's wheels or body. Over time, however, dampers can lose their effectiveness, for example, as a result of wear on the internal seals and valves of the dampers. When the damping force of a damper is reduced, the motion of the vehicle changes toward an undamped, or oscillatory motion. This undamped motion can result in, for example, increased tire wear, increased suspension wear, and overall degraded vehicle handling.
It is, therefore, advantageous for vehicle control systems, which enhance vehicle handling and increase passenger safety, to have knowledge of the effectiveness of each the vehicle's suspension dampers, and be able to provide information, for example, to the vehicle's driver regarding when a damper has failed and needs to be serviced. It may be advantageous, therefore, to provide a vehicle damper monitoring system that may utilize the dynamic motion of the vehicle's wheels to continuously monitor and evaluate the quality and/or effectiveness of each damper as the vehicle is driven, and provide feedback, for example, to a service provider or the driver if a damper is determined to be defective. It may be further advantageous to provide vehicle damper monitoring systems and methods which utilize existing vehicle sensors to measure the dynamic motion of the wheels, and monitor the effectives of the suspension dampers.